The Mennyms

by Sylvia Waugh

  CONTENTS

  * * *

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Foreword: The Birth of the Mennyms

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  1. The Letter

  2. Consternation

  3. The Problem

  4. The Rat

  5. The Leg

  6. Redundant

  7. A Visit from Miss Quigley

  8. Sir Magnus Calls a Meeting

  9. The Conference

  10. A Letter to Australia

  11. Joshua’s Christmas Job

  12. Albert’s Second Letter

  13. More Problems

  14. Joshua’s Bliss

  15. Preparations

  16. The Hi-jack

  17. Albert’s Adventures

  18. Pilbeam

  19. Appleby’s Birthday

  20. Pilbeam’s Progress

  21. Letters

  22. The Inner Circle

  23. Alone in the Attic

  24. The Showdown

  25. Vinetta and Pilbeam

  26. Sunday Morning

  27. Sunday Night

  28. Monday Morning

  29. Monday Afternoon

  30. Wimpey Meets Pilbeam

  31. Searching Again

  32. Appleby Takes a Bath

  33. The Last Conference

  34. Born Knowing

  35. Appleby’s Progress

  36. More Letters

  37. Miss Quigley’s Champions

  38. Miss Quigley Settles In

  39. The Last Chapter

  Read on

  About the Author

  Also by Sylvia Waugh

  Praise for the Mennyms Sequence

  Copyright

  About the Book

  From the outside, 5 Brocklehurst Grove looks like an ordinary house – the windows are always clean, and the garden well tended. And from the inside, to hear voices of the inhabitants, the Mennym family, you would think they were a perfectly ordinary family, too. But you’d be wrong, for the Mennyms are far from ordinary. The whole family shares an astonishing secret behind which it’s hidden for forty years; a secret to which nobody has ever come close – until perhaps, now. When a letter arrives from Australia, the whole family is plunged into fear that now, for the first time, their secret is about to be exposed . . .

  Sylvia Waugh’s extraordinary debut novel about the Mennyms, a family of life-sized rag dolls, won the 1994 Guardian Children’s Fiction Award.

  The Mennyms

  Sylvia Waugh

  The Birth of the Mennyms

  How it all began

  The house at Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove gave a long sigh of relief. The funeral of Kate Penshaw was over and the few, indifferent mourners had left. In the attic, the dolls were safe. No unworthy intruder had discovered them. Yet the house could not quite ease back into silence. It sighed again, so deeply that boards creaked and curtains gently trembled. The house was profoundly lonely without Kate, the maker of the dolls, who had lived there all her life. Perhaps it was that second, melancholy sigh that called her back, unless it was the dolls themselves, yearning for their maker. . .

  In the attic at Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove, a baby was whimpering. It was the first sign of life. A baby cradled in its grandmother’s lap began to cry and to put a tiny, knitted thumb in its newly-opened mouth.

  The doll with the name Lady Tulip fastened to her apron patted the baby with that automatic soothing action of any woman holding any weeping child.

  “There, there,” she said. “There, there.”

  They were the first words uttered by the rag doll, the first words uttered by any rag doll anywhere in the universe.

  After that everything happened in a rush.

  Appleby flung an arm in the air, a long gangly arm. Joshua reached over to Vinetta and grasped her hand. Sir Magnus eased himself up and groaned as if old bones inside of him had become arthritic. Poopie and Wimpey looked at one another and twitched their heads as if they could not believe what their button eyes were seeing. Miss Quigley shrank back into the shadows, watched carefully, and waited for what would happen next. They must lead. She knew that. They were all Mennyms. She was a Quigley, the only one of her family in …what were they in? …what was it all about? Better not ask, thought Miss Quigley, and then she wondered whether she even had the right to think.

  On the other side of the attic, out of sight beyond the curtain, the blue doll in the rocking chair looked down at the floor, caught sight of his blue face in the hanging mirror, and sighed. I believe there are others, he thought. I don’t believe that I am entirely alone in the world. But the others, it seems to me, cannot look as strange as I do.

  It was Appleby who flung aside the curtain, Appleby who was first to the attic door, first down the stairs into the house. The others quickly followed. Granny Tulip and Baby Googles, Poopie and Wimpey, then Vinetta and Joshua who helped Sir Magnus to his feet and shuffled him along, forwards, then sideways through the narrow door.

  Joshua and Vinetta needed no cue to tell them what to do with Sir Magnus. Instinctively they took him to the big front bedroom on the top floor of the house. They helped him into bed and covered him with the counterpane. He had not spoken a word. Now, established in his proper place, he came fully to life and irritably thrust one purple foot out of the counterpane.

  His black eyes glared at the man he suddenly recognized as his son.

  “What sort of game is this?” he growled. “Why do I know so much and remember so little?”

  “Remembering will take a bit of practice, Father,” said Vinetta, but not quite sure what she meant. “But you know that already. You are the wisest of us. You are the cleverest.”

  That was soothing, that was what Magnus needed to hear. He lay back on the pillows and instantly recalled lying there some time before. It was not going to be easy, but perhaps it had something to offer. He looked up at his son and his daughter-in-law.

  “So this is what it means to live,” he said - and promptly fell asleep.

  “Let’s leave him,” said Joshua. “What he is doing is probably wisest. It will take us time to get used to living. We can live quite slowly whilst we learn the rules.”

  “There are rules?” said Soobie softly. His father turned round and looked at him. Amber lozenge eyes met the silver gaze and a feeling of deep friendship passed between father and son.

  “There has to be,” said Joshua. “This is a game after all. And not such a bad game. I think I can learn to enjoy it.”

  “But you’re not blue,” said Soobie, smiling wryly.

  “There’s nothing wrong with being blue,” said Vinetta. “You are a very handsome young man and I am proud to be your mother.”

  On the floor below, Poopie and Wimpey had already begun to play like any other ten-year-olds. And Appleby, the teenager, had found a bedroom with a dressing-table and was sitting in front of the mirror brushing her long red hair.

  Tulip laid Googles down in her cot in the day-nursery and then went to the breakfast room. She looked round, taking things in, tuning into the memories her maker had imparted, and she was more aware than any of the others of just how complex life would be.

  They’ve no idea, she thought. It’s a wonderful undertaking and we’ll make something of it. But it’s going to need ingenuity and a lot of hard work.

  Magnus knew, of course. When Tulip went to sit beside her husband he woke up and looked at her with an odd, sad smile.

  “Those men in the legend who sprang fully-grown from dragon’s teeth,” he said, “I wonder how they felt. I wonder how each one of them coped with coming so strangely into the world?”

  “That was just a story,” said Tulip brusquely. “Nothing l
ike living in an ordinary English town in the middle of the twentieth century. We’ll just have to take it a step at a time.”

  Magnus nodded approval.

  “Mustn’t try to run before we can walk,” he said, though the purple foot that dangled from the counterpane did not look capable of performing either of those actions.

  Miss Quigley left last. She turned very deliberately and closed the door behind her. I must go home, she thought, I must get back to Trevethick Street. I am just a visitor here. So she made her way down three flights of stairs and found herself in the hall. It was difficult. It was very, very difficult. But she knew her part. She was wearing her outdoor clothes and carrying her handbag. Where on earth was Trevethick Street? It was hard to be born middle-aged with such a crowd of undigested memories and compulsory pretends.

  She looked along the hall. There was a cupboard under the stairs with a high door. She opened it. Inside was a cane-backed chair. Miss Quigley sat on it. For now, she thought, just for now, this can be home. I’ll visit the Mennyms next Friday. By then they will know what we should be doing and how we should live.

  For my family

  I, a stranger and afraid

  In a world I never made.

  Last Poems A.E. Housman

  1

  * * *

  The Letter

  Loftus

  Palmerston District

  Dubbo

  New South Wales

  Australia

  10th September

  Dear Sir Magnus,

  Seems strange me writing a letter like this to a sir and all that. I must admit I don’t quite know how to begin. You see, I’ve just inherited, among other things, the house you have rented all these years from my Uncle Chesney. Leastways, you did rent from him till he died a few months back. Now it appears that, as his sole kin, I am to become your landlord.

  Fancy me a landlord! And landlord to a real live sir at that! If I sound a bit naive and over-impressed, can’t be helped. I am a fairly ordinary bloke and I am impressed. I’m not a millionaire or anything like that, but I’m a darn sight richer than I was a while ago and I’m tickled pink to own a property in England.

  About me, since you must be wondering, I’m just past thirty, unmarried (and with no intentions in that direction) and I must’ve spent more time with sheep than with people for the past ten year or more. Now what with the land here I’ve been left, and a tidy bit of money, I’m thinking of coming, for the first time ever, to the old country to see a bit of the world and, if you’ve got no objection, to pay you a visit. Not as a landlord lording it, you know, but, I hope, as a friend to you and your family.

  From what I can gather, you’ve been tenants at Brocklehurst Grove since old Auntie Kate died nigh on forty year ago. Uncle Ches was a wee bit vague about how you come to take over, but then Uncle Ches was vague about most things. Except money! I see you paid his agents the rent, and a fair rent at that. He had no cause to grumble. Still, you never did get to meet him, so I won’t speak no ill of the dead.

  I suppose you must be getting on a bit by now. Forty is a considerable number of years. I hope this letter finds you a hale and hearty granpa! I understand from the papers the agents hold that you are blessed with a wife and family. Tulip struck me as a curious name for a woman, but real pretty when you come to think of it. I hope that you and all of yours are thriving.

  It’s my purpose to come your side late November. I don’t want to intrude at all, but I’d love to meet all of you and see the house where Great Aunt Kate was born and lived out all her days. Uncle Ches used to shake his head and say she was a ‘character’, but he never did specify how.

  I look forward to enjoying your company and hearing all your memories. I hope you will look on me as part of your family. I have no other family of my own.

  Yours very sincerely,

  Albert Pond

  2

  * * *

  Consternation

  THE LETTER FROM Albert Pond shot through the tightly sprung letter-box of 5 Brocklehurst Grove on a wet October morning before any of its residents had stirred from their beds. It was Saturday.

  “Sounds like the postman’s been,” said Vinetta with a yawn. Joshua turned in his sleep and grunted. He didn’t want to wake up. His tattered left leg was wrapped to the knee in an old bath towel and he was not looking forward to the day ahead.

  “I suppose I’d better go and look,” said Vinetta, pulling herself up out of bed and putting on her slippers. The curtains showed a pale daylight. So she went downstairs without switching on the light and picked up the airmail letter from the doormat.

  An airmail letter, she thought with some surprise. The only letters the Mennyms ever received were of the business sort: cheques for Sir Magnus and other letters from his publishers, household bills and receipts, catalogues for Appleby, and occasional flattering offers to take part in prize draws. Never personal letters. And never, never letters from abroad.

  Vinetta looked at the envelope more carefully. “It’s for Granpa!” she exclaimed.

  In the best bedroom at the front of the house, Granpa Mennym was still asleep. His elegant white moustache flowed over his lips. He had been born knowing a thousand pearls of wisdom. That is a lot of knowledge. So he found it necessary to lie and think deep thoughts every day of his life. His advice was not always taken, but it was deemed to be well worth hearing.

  Magnus was, physically, the least active member of the family. He never left his bed. His only mobility was in one purple velvet foot that dangled from the counterpane. The twins, Poopie and Wimpey, sometimes tried to rouse their grandfather by swinging on this tempting appendage, but soon the foot would simply grow forcefully rigid and kick the two of them to the other side of the room. Then they would scream the place down as if the impact had really hurt them. It was one of their favourite pretends.

  If their mother, Vinetta, was by when this happened, she would say briskly, “Don’t make such a fuss, you two. It’d take more than Granpa’s foot to knock the stuffing out of you. Go and play with Googles. Or ask Appleby to show you her stamp collection.”

  When Vinetta came to Granpa’s room on this particular October morning, the old man did not stir. The purple foot dangled limply over the edge of the bed.

  “Granpa,” said Vinetta loudly as she opened the curtains, “there’s a letter for you from Australia. Isn’t that where the owner lives?”

  Granpa looked at her sharply, focussing the black button eyes that never closed in sleep, but could vary from the dull opaque of dreaming to the bright gleam of intelligent thought.

  “Yes, it is,” he growled, not at all pleased at being aroused from his slumbers. “Wonder what he wants. In forty years we’ve never heard directly from him before. She’s paid the rent, hasn’t she?”

  “Of course she has,” said Vinetta indignantly. “Besides, it might not be from him.”

  “And who else in Australia would have heard of us?” Sir Magnus gave his daughter-in-law a withering look.

  From the dressing room next door, Granny Tulip called plaintively, “What is it? What is it now?” She had chosen to sleep in the small room because she was often wakeful at night and liked to get on with her knitting, sometimes in the wee small hours. She was ceaselessly active. All day she would sit in the breakfast room downstairs knitting garments for the whole family. Her needles moved with fascinating speed. All of her movements were quick and economical. Even her speech was rapid and purposeful.

  Within seconds she was at Granpa’s bedside. She was, as always, fully dressed, wearing a blue and white checked apron. She was a very neat little woman with pure white hair and a deceptively tolerant, friendly expression on her fine-featured face. Without a word, she took the envelope fromGranpa’s large mittened fingers and deftly opened it. Taking care of the bills was, after all, her job. And, until the letter was opened, who was to say that it was not some unusual demand for money?

  What she read, through her little round spect
acles, made her gasp in surprise.

  “Well I never,” she huffed and read on as the other two watched her with keen curiosity.

  “Just imagine!” she exclaimed.

  “Fancy that!” she muttered as she reached the end of the second page.

  “What is it, Gran?” demanded Vinetta at last.

  “He’s coming here. He’s coming next month to see us all!”

  A dull horror came over the room.

  “He can’t be,” bellowed Magnus forcibly, speaking from the depths of his great knowledge and his mound of snowy white pillows. “He must be about eighty by now. He won’t be gallivanting all the way from Australia to see us after all these years. He didn’t bother when he was forty. He certainly won’t bother at eighty. You haven’t read the letter properly, woman.”

  “Don’t you woman me!” snapped Granny Tulip. “I’ve read it all right. It’s not Chesney who’s coming. It’s his nephew. Chesney’s dead. The new owner is called Albert Pond. This could be serious.”

  “He owns the house now,” said Vinetta doubtfully.

  Magnus looked at the two women bleakly, his black eyes turning dull and lifeless.

  “Yes,” he said in a grim voice, “if that’s the case. He owns the house. It could fairly be argued that he owns us too.”

  “We pay the rent,” said Tulip firmly. “Every month on the dot I send a cheque to the agents. There can’t be a better payer than us. Whenever they have increased the payment, we have paid the extra without a murmur. And we haven’t asked for any repairs to be done. We are ideal tenants. The new owner should be satisfied with that.”

  “If he ever finds out what we really are,” groaned Granpa, “I shudder to think what he might do.” So saying, he turned his back on the two women and pulled the counterpane right over his head.

  3

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